Storage Is Displacing Peakers. Is That Any Cause for Concern?

2018 is looking like the year the energy storage industry makes good on its promise to replace gas peaking-power plants. But it will have to answer a few tough questions first.

Industry discussions, naturally, have centered on the upside: deliver peak power without the air pollution or carbon emissions, avoid the stranded-asset problem, make money through other grid services when a gas peaker would sit idle.

That pitch has inched toward reality in a few cases. NRG’s 262-megawatt Puente plant looks almost certainly dead -- Southern...